Two killed in Israeli strike on a car in southern Lebanon

Two killed in Israeli strike on a car in southern Lebanon
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A smoke plume rises over athe southern Lebanese village of Kfar Kila during Israeli bombardment on May 16, 2024, amid ongoing cross-border clashes between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters. (AFP)
Two killed in Israeli strike on a car in southern Lebanon
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Israel and Hamas ally Hezbollah have exchanged near-daily fire since the Palestinian group’s October 7 attack on southern Israel sparked Gaza war. (File/AFP)
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Updated 17 May 2024
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Two killed in Israeli strike on a car in southern Lebanon

Two killed in Israeli strike on a car in southern Lebanon
  • Hundreds of missile strikes and air raids as fighting between Hezbollah and Israeli army intensifies over past 48 hours
  • Hundreds of missile strikes and air raids as fighting between Hezbollah and Israeli army intensifies over past 48 hours

BEIRUT: Two people were killed in an Israeli strike on a car in southern Lebanon on Thursday afternoon. They were on their way to the funeral of a Hezbollah member when a drone targeted their vehicle on the Qana-to-Ramadiyeh road in Tyre.

Earlier in the day, Hezbollah said it launched “more than 60” Katyusha rockets toward Israeli military positions in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights in retaliation for strikes on Wednesday that killed a member of the group.

It said it targeted an army base in Metula with S-5 missiles launched from a drone, and struck “the 210th Golan Division in Nafah, the Kilaa air defense base, and the Yoav artillery barracks with rockets.”

Hezbollah said it was using a new type of weapon — attack drones armed with missiles — and conducting several operations against Israeli military sites, including army outposts and a command center. The group also said its attacks had damaged surveillance equipment installed at the Ramyeh and Addir outposts.




A picture taken from southern Lebanon shows smoke rising above the northern Israeli town of Metula following a Hezbollah strike from the Lebanese side on May 16, 2024. (AFP) 

Israeli media said that an armor-piercing missile struck the Metula settlement, killing one person and seriously injuring two. Hezbollah also reportedly targeted the Zar’it barracks, including an equipment crane and newly deployed surveillance equipment, with guided weapons and artillery shells, and carried out a series of attacks on military outposts near the border, damaging surveillance equipment at Jal Al-Allam.

Sirens sounded repeatedly in several Israeli towns and cities, including Metula, Kiryat Shmona, Hurfeish and Peki’in, and in western Galilee and at Israeli military outposts in upper Galilee.

Israeli media reports described “the launching of dozens of rockets from Lebanon toward Meron and northern villages” in Israel, and the targeting of a military base at Mount Meron. Two missiles were fired from southern Lebanon toward Mattat in western Galilee, and 40 missiles targeted the Golan and the Galilee panhandle.

Hostilities between Hezbollah and the Israeli army have intensified over the past 48 hours along the southern Lebanese front, as both sides continue to cross red lines established over the past seven months and deploy ever-more advanced weapons.

Missiles fired by Hezbollah reached an area west of Tiberias, 50 kilometers from the border, while Israeli raids hit the village of Nabi Chit in Bekaa, 71 kilometers east of Beirut.

Hezbollah said its attacks on Thursday were in response to Israeli raids that targeted the Baalbek-Hermel region on Wednesday night and Thursday morning. Israeli warplanes carried out 10 raids on targets in the vicinity of Baalbek, and five raids on the outskirts of Nabi Chit. The attacks extended as far as a mountain range in eastern Lebanon between the villages of Brital and Khraibeh. Israeli airstrikes also targeted an evacuated Hezbollah training camp but no casualties were reported.




A picture taken from Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel shows an Israeli fighter jet firing a flare over southern Lebanon on May 16, 2024. (AFP)

Hezbollah had on Wednesday attacked the Ilaniya military base, west of Tiberias, with drones, targeting part of the Israeli Air Force’s comprehensive monitoring and detection systems.

Israeli Army Radio reported “the explosion of a Hezbollah drone at a security site in the Golani area” and said “technical teams were investigating the extent of the impact and damage to the site.”

This latest escalation of hostilities follows the assassination of a prominent Hezbollah field commander, Hussein Ibrahim Makki, and several other people in a drone attack on the Tyre road on Tuesday night.

The Israeli military had also targeted Lebanese border towns with dozens of missiles and airstrikes. In the Marjayoun plain, two shepherds were wounded by one of the attacks, which also struck Kfarkela, Aita Al-Shaab, Aitaroun, Mays Al-Jabal, Hula, Blida, Yarine, Ramyah, and the outskirts of Chihine and Wadi Zebqin. Some buildings in these towns have been razed as a result of such daily strikes.

Meanwhile, Moshe Davidovich, the head of the Mateh Asher Regional Council in Israel, said people evacuated from northern settlements are not expected to be able to return home until at least the end of the year.

In an interview with an Israeli radio station, he said the situation has reached “a stage of indifference” and criticized the Israeli government.

“There are no policies or plans in Gaza, or the abandoned security belt known as the Galilee, which is the front line,” he said.

“The government has lost its direction; it is absent in administration, the economy and security. Extending our evacuation period means we won’t be in our homes” until 2025, he added.

 


After Hamas rejection of hostage deal, US asked Qatar to expel the group

After Hamas rejection of hostage deal, US asked Qatar to expel the group
Updated 21 sec ago
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After Hamas rejection of hostage deal, US asked Qatar to expel the group

After Hamas rejection of hostage deal, US asked Qatar to expel the group
  • Negotiators from Israel’s Mossad spy agency have repeatedly met mediators in Doha over the last year and Qatari government officials have shuttled back-and-forth to Hamas leaders in the political office

WASHINGTON/DOHA: The US has told Qatar that the presence of Hamas in Doha is no longer acceptable in the weeks since the Palestinian militant group rejected the latest proposal to achieve a ceasefire and a hostage deal, a senior administration official told Reuters on Friday.
“After rejecting repeated proposals to release hostages, its leaders should no longer be welcome in the capitals of any American partner. We made that clear to Qatar following Hamas’s rejection weeks ago of another hostage release proposal,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
Qatar then made the demand to Hamas leaders about 10 days ago, the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said. Washington has been in touch with Qatar over when to close the political office of Hamas, and it told Doha that now was the time following the group’s rejection of the recent proposal.
Three Hamas officials denied Qatar had told Hamas leaders they were no longer welcome in the country.
Qatar, alongside the US and Egypt, has played a major role in rounds of so-far fruitless talks to broker a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages the militant group is holding in the enclave.
The latest round of Doha talks in mid-October failed to reach a ceasefire, with Hamas rejecting a short-term ceasefire proposal.
The spokesperson for Qatar’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for confirmation or comment.
Last year, a senior US official said Qatar had told Washington it was open to
reconsidering the presence of Hamas
in the country once the Gaza war was over.
This came after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken
told leaders
in Qatar and elsewhere in the region that there could be “no more business as usual” with Hamas after the group led the Oct. 7 attacks on Southern Israel.
Qatar, an influential Gulf state designated as major non-NATO ally by Washington, has hosted Hamas’ political leaders since 2012 as part of an agreement with the US Doha has come under criticism from within the US and Israel over its ties to Hamas since Oct. 7.
Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani has said repeatedly over the last year that the Hamas office exists in Doha to allow negotiations with the group and that as long as the channel remained useful Qatar would allow the Hamas office to remain open.
Negotiators from Israel’s Mossad spy agency have repeatedly met mediators in Doha over the last year and Qatari government officials have shuttled back-and-forth to Hamas leaders in the political office.

 

 


US defense chief holds first call with new Israeli counterpart

US defense chief holds first call with new Israeli counterpart
Updated 09 November 2024
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US defense chief holds first call with new Israeli counterpart

US defense chief holds first call with new Israeli counterpart
  • Katz was sworn in before parliament the previous day
  • The US defense chief also discussed “the need to improve the dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza“

WASHINGTON: US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin discussed Lebanon and Gaza on Friday in his first call with his new Israeli counterpart Israel Katz, the Pentagon said.
Katz was sworn in before parliament the previous day, after his predecessor’s shock dismissal by the prime minister over a breakdown in trust during the war in Gaza — a conflict that began with a devastating Hamas attack against Israel on October 7, 2023.
Austin “held an introductory call today with the new Israeli minister of defense, Israel Katz, and congratulated him on his recent appointment,” Pentagon spokesman Major General Pat Ryder said in a statement.
He told Katz that Washington is committed to a deal that allows Lebanese and Israeli citizens displaced by more than a year of cross-border violence to return to their homes, as well as to the return of hostages seized by Palestinian militant group Hamas, Ryder said.
The US defense chief also discussed “the need to improve the dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza,” after he and Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Israel in a letter earlier this month that it needed to allow more aid into the small war-wracked coastal territory.


Palestinian leader tells Trump ready to work for Gaza peace

Mahmud Abbas told Donald Trump he was ready to work toward a “just and comprehensive peace” in Gaza. (Reuters)
Mahmud Abbas told Donald Trump he was ready to work toward a “just and comprehensive peace” in Gaza. (Reuters)
Updated 09 November 2024
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Palestinian leader tells Trump ready to work for Gaza peace

Mahmud Abbas told Donald Trump he was ready to work toward a “just and comprehensive peace” in Gaza. (Reuters)

RAMALLAH: Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas expressed readiness to work toward a “just and comprehensive peace” in Gaza during a phone call with US President-elect Donald Trump on Friday, his office said.
Trump’s victory came with the Middle East in turmoil after the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023, triggered by the unprecedented attack on Israel by Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Congratulating Trump on his victory, Abbas expressed “readiness to work with President Trump to achieve a just and comprehensive peace based on international legitimacy,” his office said in a statement.
It said that Trump also assured Abbas that he will work to end the war.
“President Trump stressed that he will work to stop the war, and his readiness to work with president Abbas and the concerned parties in the region and the world to make peace in the region.”
While Trump struck a note of peace during his campaign, he also touted his status as Israel’s strongest ally, even going so far as to promise Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu he would “finish the job” against Hamas in Gaza.


Lebanon says three dead in Israel strikes on Tyre

Lebanon says three dead in Israel strikes on Tyre
Updated 08 November 2024
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Lebanon says three dead in Israel strikes on Tyre

Lebanon says three dead in Israel strikes on Tyre
  • The strikes targeted three buildings in the city
  • Israel had issued no evacuation warning ahead of the strikes

BEIRUT: The Lebanese health ministry said at least three people were killed and 30 others wounded on Friday in Israeli strikes on the southern city of Tyre.
The official National News Agency said the strikes targeted three buildings in the city and caused heavy damage to neighboring apartment blocks.
It said Israel had issued no evacuation warning ahead of the strikes.
Israel has been at war with Lebanese militant group Hezbollah since late September, when it broadened its focus from fighting Hamas in the Gaza Strip to securing its northern border, even as the Gaza war continues.
Hezbollah began low intensity strikes on Israel in support of Hamas following its Palestinian ally’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel which triggered the Gaza war.


‘Strong likelihood’ famine imminent in north Gaza, say food security experts

‘Strong likelihood’ famine imminent in north Gaza, say food security experts
Updated 08 November 2024
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‘Strong likelihood’ famine imminent in north Gaza, say food security experts

‘Strong likelihood’ famine imminent in north Gaza, say food security experts
  • The warning comes just days ahead of a US deadline for Israel to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza

LONDON: There is a “strong likelihood that famine is imminent in areas” of the northern Gaza Strip, a committee of global food security experts warned on Friday, as Israel pursues a military offensive against Palestinian militants Hamas in the area.
“Immediate action, within days not weeks, is required from all actors who are directly taking part in the conflict, or have influence on its conduct, to avert and alleviate this catastrophic situation,” the independent Famine Review Committee (FRC) said in a rare alert.
The warning comes just days ahead of a US deadline for Israel to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza or face potential restrictions on US military aid.